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STORY: Dramatic video released by the Italian Navy on Saturday showed desperate migrants being rescued from the sea after the boat they were traveling on capsized and sank.
Italian and Maltese navy ships recovered 34 bodies and rescued 206 migrants after their boat sank about 60 nautical miles south of Sicily on Friday.
While some survivors were taken to Malta, others were taken to Lampedusa by the Italian Navy.
At least 339 people drowned on October 3 when a boat carrying Eritrean and Somali migrants sank near Lampedusa, southwest of Sicily.
Last week's disaster was one of the worst in a protracted migrant crisis in which tens of thousands of people have arrived in flimsy, overcrowded boats in southern Italy, and some vessels wrecked. Lampedusa, midway between Sicily and Tunisia, has borne the brunt.
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 32,000 have arrived in southern Italy and Malta this year alone, around two thirds of whom have filed requests for asylum.
Most migrants come from sub-Saharan Africa, but this year many are fleeing the civil war in Syria or political turmoil in Egypt and other parts of North Africa. Many are drawn by hopes of finding work in Europe and often do not stay in Italy.